


A Mother's Touch

by TheCreatorOfTales



Category: Wentworth (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Ghosts, Happy Ending, Ivan Ferguson was not perfect but gets called out on his actions, Joan's mother is an actual fleshed out character in this one, Sad with a Happy Ending, Supernatural - Freeform, ghosts? maybe? a dream?, in a way only a mama can, she speaks the truth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-14 05:07:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29165448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheCreatorOfTales/pseuds/TheCreatorOfTales
Summary: Joan Ferguson finds herself with an unexpected visitor late one night, who doesn't like the direction that her daughter's life is going in.So she does her best to change it.
Relationships: Freakytits, Joan Ferguson/Jianna Riley (past), Vera Bennett/Joan Ferguson, a hint of it
Comments: 3
Kudos: 16





	A Mother's Touch

**Author's Note:**

> There's supernatural elements? I think? I'll leave it up to you guys to interpret it, but it was stuck in my head and now it's down on paper. 
> 
> I've got another adventure with Penny in the works, that's about halfway done so I hope to bring that to you soon!

_She’s dreaming. She knows that she’s dreaming because the locket she usually wears all the time isn’t around her neck. It’s around the neck of the woman stood in front of her._

Joan knows this woman. She dreamt of her so many times when she was only a teenager, wishing that she was with her. The elaborately curled and styled, jet black hair with a white streak at her temple. The pristine red nails and the lipstick that matched. The black slacks, and the dark green sweater with a boat neck.

This was her mother.

Milena Ferguson had disappeared out of the blue when Joan was twelve years old. She’d kissed her daughter on the forehead, pressed her lunchbox into her hands and then ushered her out the door, waving as Joan had walked down the street to school and when Joan had returned home, her father was sat waiting at the kitchen table with a serious look on his face and ice in his eyes.

Joan never knew what happened to her mother, but she knew that her father was never the same man after she disappeared.

“My love, what a woman you have become.” She says, in Russian. She stands in front of her daughter, hands pressed together, looking at her fondly. “My Joanna.”

She pronounces her daughter’s birth name as ‘ _io-an-na’,_ a name she had answered to, up until the age of thirteen when her father had abruptly moved them to Australia with little warning. Joan remembers with the sudden realisations how much she’s missed being called her original birth name.

“Now,” her mother sat at the edge of her bed. “I don’t have much time, darling but I must speak to you.” Joan’s Russian is not as native and flawless as it once was, and her mind stutters to keep up, not wanting to miss a word of her mother’s speech. She may be dreaming, or have finally lost her mind (she already saw and spoke to her father, despite him being long dead after all.) but she hasn’t seen her mother in _so long_.

“Joanna, this path you are going down will lead to despair and tragedy for you and so many people who could change your life and bring you happiness.”

Joan blinks at the woman perched at the edge of her bed.

“I am your _mama_ , my girl. I see all.” Joan doesn’t get a chance to answer her back, because she starts to speak again. “I know your pain with your Jianna, and it was a terrible business. But you cannot change this, can you? It was in the past. Do not sabotage a happy future for a miserable and painful past, like your _papa_.”

Her eyes fly to meet her mothers, and she stares, without blinking. She cannot demand anything of her mother, regardless of whether she is a dream, a ghost or some amalgamation of the two.

“My darling, I was your father’s Jianna. And the choice I made the day that I left you, I would do again, because it protected you. You were, and are, my greatest treasure.”

“ _Mama,_ ” Joan’s voice catches in her throat. “I never got to know what happened to you.” Her Russian is stilted, and awkward from lack of use, but Milena raises her hand and cups her cheek, with a sad smile.

“The motherland was to be protected at all cost. And I? Well, we knew some things, your _papa_ and I, that we shouldn’t have done, about the government and your father was given a choice to keep him under control. Either he shot me, or you. I did not give him a choice, or a chance to fire his gun. I did it myself.”

Joan blinks, horrified, holding her mother’s hand to her cheek. Milena’s thumb continues to gently move in reassurance.

“I made him promise, that as soon as it was safe to do so, that he would take you and run as far away as possible.” Joan watches as her mother blinks away wet eyes. “He met that promise. But he never let me go in his heart, and he turned you into a little soldier, thinking he was protecting you from this sort of hurt.”

Milena reaches out her other hand and grasps Joan’s.

“I will forgive your papa, for many things. But I will never forgive him for stealing your childhood. There is a special saying about good intentions, in English.”

“The road to hell…”

“Is paved with good intentions.” Milena finishes the idiom, in heavily accented English, smiling at her daughter. “I am so proud of you, my little _kroshka._ So very proud. You have done so much, made a name for yourself. But work is not everything, my love.”

Joan opens her mouth, and then blinks at the sharp tap her forehead received in warning. It was something only her mother had done, when she was about to be interrupted as she was speaking of something important. Joan remembers hating the action with a fury when she was a child, but finds herself willing to sit forever through multiple taps if only her mother would stay with her.

“Love has it’s role to play in life.”

“I had mine, _mama._ And she was taken.” Joan’s tone is sad, and borderline petulant.

“Love never strikes only once, my love. You have missed out on good friends, lovers. I had my own fair share, darling. And not only men.”

Joan stares open-mouthed at her mother.

“What? I was quite a catch, I’ll have you know. Your father was lucky to settle down with me.” Her hand on Joan’s cheek hasn’t moved. “There is always time, my darling. Find love and friendship again, and find your spark. Find your people. Found families are some of the strongest there is.”

Milena eyes the sky through the small gap in the curtains, noticing that it’s close to dawn. “Give yourself a chance, my girl. Or end up miserable and hated. You deserve more in life than to be hated for actions done in revenge.”

Her mother has spoken. The tone is one only a mother has, one of absolute love, but is also stern and commanding. More often used to tell children to eat their vegetables and not to run with scissors.

“I must leave you.” She leans forward and presses a kiss to Joan’s forehead, and the woman finds herself closing her eyes and inhaling, and smells the perfume that her mother had favoured.

“ _Mama…”_

 _“_ No tears my love. I have one final piece of advice for you. Wear your hair down on your first day, and the answer you need to give to the invitation is yes.”

Confused, Joan blinks and stutters.

“Trust your mama, Joanna. Say yes, and wear your hair down.” Milena rubs Joan’s hair and shushes her daughter. “Now, to sleep with you, my girl. I love you.”

_I love you._

Joan’s eyes close against her will and she sleeps.

* * *

Sat at her dressing table, the morning of her first day at Wentworth, her hand automatically reaches for the small mountain of hair pins in the trinket dish to put her hair up into its usual bun, but she pauses.

_Say yes, and wear your hair down._

She gazes at her own reflection for a moment, the bare minimum of makeup that she favoured already done, and her uniform only missing its tie and blazer, she contemplates her mother’s words. She doesn’t know if it was a dream, or a ghost. But she pulls open the top drawer of the dresser all the same, and rummages around, finding the item she wants.

Using the brush, she gathers the hair at the front of her face and uses the simple clip to keep it out of the way, clipping the front locks at the back of her head. The rest of her hair, pin straight as it ever was, fell to just below her shoulders. She begins to move off of the chair when something in the mirror catches her eye. Leaning forward, she eyes the hair at the top of her forehead.

Sure enough, there is a white hair there, in the exact same spot her mother had her own streak of white.

Joan simply huffs a laugh and smiles at her reflection. She looks… _softer._ Happier? Maybe.

But there was definitely a softer edge to her harshness now.

She moves away from the mirror, pulls on her tie and her blazer and soon she’s out of the door on the way to her new prison.

She finds drugs in the laundry cart, sends an inmate to solitary to make a point to the women and pulls the staff up by their bootstraps to her standards. She meets Vera Bennett, who blushes a pretty shade of pink when Joan smiles at her when they first meet.

Later, they walk out of the prison together, Vera offers an invitation for cocktails at the weekend.

Joan remembers her mother’s words, once more.

_Say yes, and wear your hair down._

“Yes, I’d like that, Vera.”

Vera Bennett blushes that pretty shade of pink again when Joan smiles warmly at her.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for your support on the fics, you absolutely beautiful people! It truly gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling that other people find my work worth reading <3


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